I’m in a particularly cynical mood tonight. I can feel the irrational levels of hatred forming the front lines of an outburst. I loathe these moments for how informative they feel. My deepest sense of reality pressed at every pressure point. And it’s brought on by a stupid board game.
I see the rest of my life. I’ve met people like me, or more often read about them. The “go-getter” with an unassailable spirit to keep trying. The one who’s interested in everything and never backs away from a fight, especially ones he doesn’t need to have. I’ve been comfortable for some time with referring to myself as much a cliché as I may label someone else. It’s the healthy mix of naivety and wisdom that let’s you keep moving in spite of yourself.
The psychology I’m molded from has just enough drops of abuse and despair intermingled with selfless sentiment. Each moment I choose to make an opponent of myself, or “humanity,” or “your stupid stupid self who has no capacity to properly use words.” There’s no surprises. There’s nothing engaging. Whether I get on an old-man ramble how I’m going to be having the same conversation about the Middle East 25 years from now as my parents did 25 years ago, or if I get drunk and talk for 3 hours to a group of people on their porch in the middle of the night, to me, it speaks to nothing.
Because this is my voice, I don’t have a voice. Because those examples are when I’m loudest, when I pick up a megaphone, you’ll never hear me. The pen is only mightier than the sword in a battle of wits. It takes almost negative thought to exist as we do. I phrase it as such because I offer people the chance to read or recognize and they literally tell me they feel sorry for me. I don’t deserve to be as sure of myself as they are themselves. I’m not worthy of the game they’re playing.
I feel my grip loosen as each finger is plucked by the macabre man who oversees existence. How does one not dance about in the depravity? What’s worth it really mean anymore?
Depravity, for me, looks like taking the money and running. It says, rather insistently, fuck you, I got mine. No, you didn’t hear me, FUCK YOU, I GOT MINE, LIFE’S HARD ENOUGH NIGGA GET THE FUCK BACK. And then when the guilt or pity kicks in from time to time you donate to the dying children. Depravity looks like sleep. So much sleep I up my capacity for indulgence to induce it artificially. Why not? Although, lately, even my dreams haven’t been safe.
What’s left for me to believe in? That I’ll get my cool house or compound? That I’ll give more privileged travelers opportunities to mask the depravity of the “gig economy” and spectacle of dipping your toes into the homogenized commodities that are becoming the rest of the world? That I’ll “find someone” who so amazingly and wonderfully thinks like me! And it will all be okay again because we’ve been hurt before and learned so much!
The tragedy is belief. I believed in school. I believed in love. I believed in family. I believed in my work ethic. I believed in my intelligence. I believed in my interested and engaged perspective. I believed in conversation. I believed in sincerity. I believed in, practically unconditional, acceptance. I believed in selfishness. I believed in manipulation. And apparently I believe in an endless stream of disgusting words that speak to my snarled lip and furled brow.
I’m always lying. What to make of all the time I’m lying and I never even meant to. When I’ve bitched too much it wasn’t enough. When I stopped hitting the wall after the first hole or first few drops of blood I let myself off easy. When I set my computer aside and roll over thinking I was done writing and might be able to sleep it will be complete and utter bullshit.
I already told you, total cliché.
I’m being dragged around by life. It’s blowing me in every which direction and I’ve found nothing to ground myself in but wandering around, saving money, and complaining. I pick goals for their ability to retain my attention for longer than a few days. I form opinions on thousands of movies and shows so I can say, “you know, I forget that scene in particular, but overall I thought it was good.” Because what else is there? Start smugly goose honking like Chris Hedges? Seek academic sainthood like Noam Chomsky? Get ripped and fuck bitches because I am all that is man!? Act like I feel brotherly love and know how to translate that message like brother Cornel West? Buy it all like the rich kids of Instagram? Drink it all? Catch em all?
I’m nothing. I’m nowhere. In 2 days, I’ll be the QT/QTC microsecond data point from the ECG measuring what some pill has or hasn’t done to delay my heart. That’s why I went to college. That’s why I wanted to be an entrepreneur. That’s why the 180 degree reorientation of my life feels invigorating and definitely not manic because I no longer get to think someone else is the most important thing in my world. As if I wasn’t clued in to that self-inflicted drama years ago. Just keep swimming!
I’m a constant roll of the dice. Maybe I’ll wake up and you’ll all be gone. Maybe I won’t make it back off the highway. Maybe I’ll go bankrupt. Maybe I’ll get sick. Maybe the psychopath I pissed off online will find me. I’ll roll and roll and roll and only see two lifeless eyes fixed straight up affirming the only thing they’re good for.
What the fuck am I doing? My job clearly isn’t to keep close connections with like-minded individuals I met in school. It’s not to become some famous insightful writer, so full of RAGE and passion, Brava! It’s not to teach you fucking anything you’re not happy to dive headfirst into anyway. Or it’s not something I haven’t poorly reiterated from those on the ground or with photographic memories and a penchant for elegance. If I’m not here for anyone, I can only be here for me, and that’s the most depressing, horrifying, and life-ending thought I can come up with.
How to frequently resolve that without being suicidal? Or maybe I’m just incidentally suicidal, like in eating shitty food and breathing hours of basement air. Or in speeding on the highway and leaving my contacts in too long. Fuck my eyes, right? I’ve seen enough. Let’s not forget picking scabs. Nothing so on the nose than literally digging at yourself to pieces. It’s not that I’m just watching people “get by” and “make the best of it.” It’s not that they just leave this ooze I can’t wash off. It must just be me. They’re not killing themselves with my mirror neurons going apeshit. I’m just the only one that doesn’t get it.
So singular minded. So closed-off and resentful. I should broaden my horizons. Find the good in everything. Use my resources and thoughtfulness to turn this window into the world onto all that is good instead of icky knowledge of a nuclear holocaust, climate apocalypse, or rape porn. Which of those made you most uncomfortable to think about? It doesn’t matter! The world is filled with beautiful mountains and love and opportunities to be surprised every day! We’re all in this together!
I am not a believer in a god, and to whatever degree I may be disgusted with myself I'm significantly moreso disgusted with the circumstances we're operating under. I don't have a direction of my life. That's partly the point. I had direction. I had many worthwhile and active directions. Now it's mostly fly by the seat of my pants and refer to everything as arbitrary. Because it persistently feels that way.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we exist for any particular reason either. None of your words make me uncomfortable.
I was a psychology major. I'm fairly familir with the varios brain mechanisms that distract and confuse the different directions we can take in life. Whatever is wrong with me, I take the time to at least write it out and attempt to orient and pacify myself. The cluster-fuck of forces that cripples my effort and perspective, let alone that of people in considerably worse circumstances is my perpetual enemy. The absent-minded distain for anything but selfish pursuits. The lack of irony in advocacy for my own forms of indulgence.
I wish I knew the titles off the top of my head, but I've written several times about free will and choice. I won't poorly reiterate my position here, but agree with have choices and think "free will" is a terrible moniker for a poorly understood component of existence.
If my life gets any simpler, I might as well reduce myself to bacteria.
I feel this blog alone is very misleading. I conjure personal joy all the time. No one makes me laugh like me. I tend to get everything I ever try for. I do not believe in a calling. My room isn't messy, the 530 blogs so far speak to my propensity to think.
I'm willing to read anything someone posts about what I say. I can feel your good intentions, but if I'm honest, it's stuff I've been through or advocated for myself in the past. It's not enough. There is no forgetting "my" troubles, because I'm a small part in an ocean of bullshit. I'm acutely aware of the things I think I need to do or work on in order to transform the ever-present now, but for reasons well beyond my control I can't accelerate the change.
And just as a distinguishing point, I'm not a nihilist. I've read enough of Nitzsche, particularly the Will to Power and empathized way too closely with his conception of "exhaustion" to be burdened by some genuine sense of perpetual woe, and certainly nothing like Sarte's despair even.
The most important line in your response I think is "never let the mundane take over." It's why I try to capture that particular kind of anger I'm feeling in blogs like this.
I have not until today.
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